


where the tide meets the tide

by grey_0_green



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, Minor Character Death, Multi, Out of Character, but they're different from canon i think, i hope to god this is as emotional as i want it to be, i just made them more mature, like literal adults, maybe????, they are so grown up, this is pretty heavy angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2020-07-09 23:20:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19896028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grey_0_green/pseuds/grey_0_green
Summary: The sun sets and the sun rises, and every time it does the grief is still there, but so is Yut Lung.





	1. you are gone

**Author's Note:**

> no one asked for this but i wrote it anyway :-) hope u enjoy uwu  
> i'll also be adding another chapter to this from yut lung's pov at some point so be on the lookout for that !
> 
> the title is from the song "herringbone" by department of eagles

Sheer curtains whip against doors he’d flung open some time while he dreamt. The sound of thunder claps against the leaden sky, and lightning burns itself into the pictures he holds in his mind. It’s cold, Sing thinks distantly, but the numbness in his body makes everything a little more filmy. 

His floor is wet, he notices. He wonders why.

He likes the feeling of his hands trailing along his leather couch. He thinks of dyed blond hair and eyes dancing on the edge of midnight. He thinks of the cigarette burn he’d tried so hard to get rid of, but the ashes had been worn into the beaten-up leather. He thinks of the knitted blanket that had been thrown over the side of it, and he thinks of the feeling of olive-dyed wool on his cheeks. 

It feels real. It almost feels warm. 

Rain-soaked fingers, rain-soaked toes, rain-soaked leather. It tastes like frost and it smells like fear. 

“Sing! Sing, what the hell are you doing?” Yue. Here, and his hair is tangling in the wind and the rain. Here, and he’s holding the trenchcoat that’s fluttering wildly around him tightly shut. Here, and there’s something in his voice that makes Sing feel something other than numb. 

“Sing, are you fucking insane? What the fuck did you do? It’s raining, you brainless piece of shit!” Rain. It’s raining. The doors are open.

The leather doesn’t feel warm.

Sing watches as Yut Lung shuts the open doors, taking his hands away from where they’re holding his trenchcoat so tightly in place, and he watches as he pushes the doors closed and his coat flies open, and the soft beige color he knows it should have been is now a wet, soggy brown.

The sound of the wind is gone, and the shaking, roaring thunder is now a vague rumbling. The rain slams against the windows, and there are puddles in his house. 

“Sing,” Yue says softly. There used to be lights in his eyes, Sing thinks. They winked away a long time ago, but he wishes they were here, now. “Sing, what did you do?”

“I opened the doors,” he mutters, staring at rug at his feet. There’s a leaf on it.

“I can see that. Are you going to tell me why?” Yue’s voice is so delicate, Sing thinks. Like it might break if he holds it too tightly.

“I was hot.”

He sighs. “Okay.” Yue opens a door and calls, “Wu, take him home.” 

He feels a hand slide into his. “Come on. I’m taking you to the car, okay? I’ll stay behind to clean all of this up. I’ll be there soon.”

Sing stands, and walks over to the car. Once he’s inside, and the door has shut, he realises the hand isn’t there anymore. 

Wu starts to drive, and Sing puts his hands on the suede seat. 

-

He doesn’t remember the last time he felt. 

Or he does. He does, actually, but he doesn’t remember what it’s like. 

To feel. Cold on his skin, warmth on his tongue. Fingers dancing across his ribcage. Eyelashes fluttering across his cheek. Wool beneath the calluses on his palms. Metal weighing heavy as his finger curls around a trigger. 

It was all before. And now all he has is pink-stained vision.

He misses him. He misses him like he’s never missed anyone else, he misses him more than he misses golden blond hair and shattered eyes, and he misses him so much he wants to tear his heart out and watch it writhe and wither grey on white tiles. 

He cries tears that run down the inside of his skull and drip onto his slow-beating heart. He can’t wipe them away.

Yue tries to soak them with the pads of his fingers. He tries to soak them with soft words, soft enough to wrap around his mind and seep through the cracks.

He doesn’t say, “It’ll be okay.” He doesn’t say, “Let him go.” 

He says, “He loves you,” and that is enough.

He says, “He knows you love him,” and that is enough, too. 

And underneath it all, underneath his whispered words and gentle touches and spoonfuls of soup, Sing also hears, “I love you.”

Soft, soft words. He isn’t sure if he’s ready to hear them.

Sing can still remember the sound of his voice, but it’s slipping away. It’s still there, but it sounds like the strange, detached way voices sound through record players. 

Crackling, a little bit faded.

It slips through his fingers like hair made of silk, it slips and slips and his grasp just isn’t quite tight enough to hold onto it for as long as he wants to. As long as he needs to. He wants to trap his voice in a box and keep it locked in a drawer, so that he can open the drawer whenever he needs and hear the sound of his voice waft through the cracks of the lid.

Yut Lung helps him to forget, sometimes. Or, not really. Remember less intensely, perhaps. Mourn more gently. 

He thinks it’s doing something. Helping, or something similar. 

He’s trying to be grateful.

-

“You look bad,” is the first thing Akira says to him. 

“What do you want me to say to that?” Sing asks. 

They’re separated. 

Relationships are awfully tangled and messy, he knows, from lust giving way all too quickly to love to utter devotion giving way to all-consuming grief. They’re terribly complicated things, he knows, but Akira seemed like an exception. 

Akira was bright and carefree. Akira was like watching the sunrise after an endless night. Akira smiled like it cost her nothing. Akira smelled like honeysuckle and roses. Akira was new, and her light was warm. 

Sing met her once when she was 13, when Sing was still trying to pick up the only pieces of Eiji that were left. She didn’t stand out very much to him, at the time. She was just a child that had come and gone, a child with a sharp mind and a sharp tongue, a child Sing only occasionally remembered and wondered about in the coming years. 

Sing met her the second time when she was 18. She was beautiful and uncomplicated, or so it seemed. Comparatively uncomplicated. Akira loved him freely and Sing loved her slowly, and strangely. It was an innocent type of love, he found, a butterflies-in-your-stomach, fireworks-when-we-kiss type of love. 

It was almost refreshing. 

They fell in love within weeks, got engaged within months, and were married just before Akira’s 19th birthday. 

They had a son a year later. They named him Liè, at Akira’s insistence. 

( Sing found Akira’s reasoning somewhat odd - she wanted him to be more connected with his Chinese heritage. Sing wasn’t entirely sure how giving him a Chinese name would affect anything at all, but he was so punch-drunk on their whirlwind romance he didn’t give it much thought at all, but later he started calling him Retsu, because he began to think that being disconnected from his Chinese heritage wasn’t really a bad thing at all. )

They’d been happy. For a few years, they’d been happy. Sing and Akira were so very in love, and together they watched as their son went from a wailing, chubby-fisted, brown-eyed baby to a stumbling, not-quite-potty-trained, bubbly toddler. 

Retsu babbled and crawled and shit his pants, and everyone absolutely adored him. 

Yut Lung often visited, and made offhand comments like, “He can barely form full sentences and still can’t seem to do anything but talk,” accompanied with a theatrical scoff, but Sing never failed to notice that out of the three of them, Yut Lung doted on Retsu the most. 

It was in the way Retsu would speed-waddle his way to the door and wrap himself around Yut Lung’s legs, with a muffled “Hi, Uncle Yue,” it in the way Yut Lung’s smile shone bright as he leaned down to ruffle his hair, and it was in the way he’d slip a dollar or two in his little hands, pinching Retsu’s cheeks when his eyes lit up. 

It was in the way he’d knock on their door with a bag of candy and tickets for all of them to the latest Spiderman movie, it was in the way he read him bedtime stories even though Retsu wasn’t tired at all, and he read and read until his own eyes began to droop, and he’d fall asleep in the rocking chair next to Retsu’s bed. 

They were happy, he thought. For the most part. 

They guided a trembling Retsu into his first day of kindergarten together, watched the anxiety present in his small frame fade away as the other children began to excitedly chatter with him, and he spoke back, with his now rather impressive (for his age, at least) vocabulary. 

When they went home that day, Akira’s eyes were misty, and Sing kissed her until they weren’t anymore. 

He flew through elementary as a star student with a big smile and a bigger heart, and they couldn’t have been prouder. 

Middle school was strange. Sing had always loved his son, and he liked to think that they had a close relationship. When Retsu was in middle school, however, he never felt farther away from him. He became quieter, more withdrawn. He had lots of friends but always seemed a bit lost in the crowd. He snapped at Sing and Akira more easily, and Akira cried sometimes after they argued. 

And somewhere in middle school, things began to turn a bit sour. For all them. For Retsu, for Sing and Akira.

Sing and Akira, to put it quite frankly, fell out of love with each other. 

They didn’t talk about it. They still haven’t. But they both knew - somewhere along the line, in between business trips and late nights at work, in between wilted flowers and cold sheets, in between unsympathetic glances and lessening touches, their love, which Sing had once thought burned brighter than the sun, began to fade away. 

It was okay. Mostly. Sing never resented Akira, and he didn’t think that she resented him either. They just reached an unexpected point in their relationship, something uncomfortably tepid, in which they didn’t mind the company of one another, but the feeling of burning familiarity and comfort that had once settled between them was no longer there. 

He didn’t feel any real desire to touch her, anymore, or even kiss her, but he kissed her anyway, because there was a part of him still operating under the assumption, the delusion, almost, that nothing had changed between them. 

He always kissed her chastely. She never tried to kiss him differently. 

He tried, once, late at night, but it felt clumsy and awkward, and he pulled away less than five seconds later. They avoided each other’s gaze and slipped under the covers, with their backs facing towards each other. They never spoke about it again. 

Sing wondered if this meant they were allowed to see other people. To his knowledge, neither of them did. 

Sing didn’t see anyone. But, sometimes, in weaker moments, he glanced at Yut Lung, who was smiling and doing something he shouldn’t, like buying Retsu an ice cream even though Sing had refused and said, “You just ate a whole box of cookies at home,” and he wondered. He wondered, _what if?_

And then he did nothing to find out.

The first part of high school was okay. The first part high school was better. Retsu, although still rather quiet, began to open up more. He spent more time with Sing and Akira. Sing sometimes noticed him glancing curiously at the two of them, but he never pressed, and Sing was grateful. 

Sing almost feels guilty for saying Retsu was the reason he and Akira stayed together, because it isn’t entirely true - Akira was safe territory. Akira was familiar. Sing knew what it was like to love Akira, and he knew what it was like to wake up next to her and cook breakfast for her and buy her flowers. 

And Sing didn’t do very well with change. 

But Retsu was part of the reason. Of course, he’d never say it out loud.

The third year of high school was bad.

The third year of high school was bad, bad, bad. 

“I was just making an observation,” Akira says.

It’s been four months since. They talk on the phone, occasionally, but this is the first time they've seen each other in person in a while. 

“It wasn’t a very necessary one,” Sing sighs.

Akira is quiet. “I know. And it’s not like you don’t have a reason.” 

“I do have a reason,” Sing whispers, and his eyes burn hot. 

The room sounds like misery. 

“What happened to us, Sing? Where did it go wrong?” Akira asks, and Sing is almost glad she says this instead.

“We just weren’t enough for each other.”

It’s a desperately lonely sentence, Sing thinks, but it’s true. They weren’t the sun he thought they were. A candle would be more of an appropriate comparison. A bright flame that was always meant to die out once the candle burned down, and now all they have is melted wax and a charred wick. 

“I’m glad you have Yue. I always wondered about that.” There’s a question in Akira’s voice, but it’s one Sing could easily ignore.

He doesn’t. “I wondered, too. But that was all I ever did. Regret is a funny thing,” Sing says. His skin feels like it’s being pulled taut.

“Regret _is_ a funny thing. I sort of wish it didn’t exist.” The laugh that comes out of her is a bitter one, but it’s hushed. Subtly bitter.

The room is quiet. 

“I miss him,” Sing tries to say, but it comes out in fragments, shards of anguish. 

“I miss him, too,” Akira says, and her face is wet and pink and Sing’s heart weeps, too. 

Sorrow tears through his chest, a tidal wave of horror, of red, red, red, a riptide of throbbing, aching heartbreak, and he wants to drown. 

He wants to choke on saltwater. He wants to be suffocated by the taste of copper in his mouth and blood in his lungs, he wants to swallow his tears and squeeze his heart so hard it explodes in his hands, he wants to rip apart his mind until there’s nothing, nothing, nothing. 

Sing has felt pain before. God, has he felt it. 

He’s seen wine and misfortune and he’s seen blond hair in a casket, he’s seen empty brown eyes and stars flicker and fade, he’s seen blood, purple hair, and mangled bodies.

But he’s never felt pain like this. 

-

It’s raining, again. 

The rain is heavy and warm, and the sky is dark. 

Sing asks Yut Lung if he would like to go swimming with him. Yut Lung has a pool on the roof of his house, because that’s just the kind of thing that people like him have. Rooftop pools, to go swimming in when there is warm rain and it’s the middle of the night. 

Yut Lung stares at him a little strangely, just for a moment, and then he says, “Let me go change. I’ll meet you there in a few minutes.” 

The pool is warmer than the rain. Like lukewarm tea on his skin. He wants to drown in it. 

Yut Lung appears a minute later with pale skin on display and twilight hair clinging to his face and shoulders, so he doesn’t.

The pool lamps make the water glow aquamarine.

Yut Lung steps in slowly. The water swirls and dances around his alabaster ankles, and Sing stares at them.

“It’s warm,” Yut Lung says, and his voice is filled with a melodic sort of surprise. It makes Sing feel lighter.

“Yeah.” Sing’s face feels soft, malleable. Like clay. “I like warm rain.” 

“I know.” Yut Lung has to raise his voice to be heard over the sound of the pouring rain, but he manages to sound gentle, anyway. 

Sing sinks into the pool a bit more. His chin rests on the surface of the water, and his shoulders are fully submerged. Yut Lung floats nearer. 

“I talked to Akira today,” Sing says, but he isn’t sure why. 

“Did you? I’m glad.” Yut Lung smiles softly. He sounds genuine. 

“Me too. It was cathartic. Even if we didn’t say all too much. I think we were just... processing our emotions together.” 

Yut Lung nods. He understands.

After a moment, Sing speaks again. “It still hurts. It still hurts so much.”

Everything hurts. This is a grief he’s never experienced. This is a grief he can never forget. Not for a moment. 

He can make it fuzzy. For a second, a minute, an hour or two. He can make the pain softer. He can feel it wrapping around his organs, weaving its way into his mind. A wolf in sheep’s clothing. Soft wool, wrapped around his heart. 

But he can’t forget. 

Yut Lung makes the pain softer. 

Yut Lung swims closer. Sing feels his hands tangle with Yut Lung’s. 

The pain turns milky. 

“I love him, too. I know I can never entirely understand the pain you feel, Sing. I know I can’t.” Yut Lung lifts his hands to cup Sing’s face. His soft clay cheeks, his soft clay heart. “But I can feel some of it. I love him, and it hurts.” 

Yut Lung’s voice is muffled in pool water and rainfall. 

Sing can’t see Yut Lung’s face very well at all in the rain. He likes warm rain, but he wishes it would stop. 

Warm rain, warm rain. 

No one can feel you cry in warm rain. 

Sing wraps his arms around Yut Lung. He just wants to hold him.

He is delicate but solid. Ebony hair sticks to Sing’s face. Sing feels Yut Lung’s breath on his neck.

This feels real. This is real. 

“You’re in love with me, right?” Sing whispers into Yut Lung’s ear.

Sing feels him breathe in sharply. 

“Yes.”

“Why?” 

“I’ve thought about that for more than two decades, Sing, and I still don’t quite have an answer. I just know that I am.” There is no misery in his voice, no sorrow. He just does. 

The rain pours. They’re still holding each other. 

“What happened to you and Akira?” Yut Lung asks.

Sing pauses. “I don’t want to say it was a mistake, because I don’t think it was. It lasted as long as it did, and I think that’s how things were supposed to be. Akira and I weren’t perfect. But we were good for a while, and then we weren’t.”

“Do you still love her?” Yut Lung says quietly.

“Yes. But differently, now. I love her calmly. I love her like I love someone who I’ve shared experiences and heartache with. But I’m not in love with her anymore, and I think she feels the same.” 

Yut Lung’s breath is hot. 

“Did you ever wonder about us?” he asks.

Sing feels Yut Lung’s cheek slide against his neck.

“Yeah. A lot of times. I wish … ” Sing trails off. He doesn’t know where he was going with that. 

“I wish,” Yut Lung says, and he holds Sing tighter. 

The pain feels like clouds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i would lay down my life for anyone who leaves a comment !! kudos are good too :) come talk to me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/grey_x_green) or [tumblr](https://grey-x-green.tumblr.com/)!


	2. one after the other

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello ! sorry it took a little longer than i expected to get this chapter out but i just want to say a few things before you begin:
> 
> 1) so i'm a real dumbass and i fucked up big time with the timeline so i had to make some changes to the last chapter. they're very minimal but you can reread if you'd like - basically all i did was change when the chapter took place from july to may, 4 months after *****'s d****
> 
> 2) this chapter is all flashbacks. the first part takes place in early january 2015 and retsu is around 16/17, while sing and yut lung are in their forties
> 
> 3) so i thought this was going to be the finale but i ended up writing way more than i anticipated so i guess!!! keep an eye out for the final chapter!!! i should be able to get it through quicker to the two of you that are waiting but no promises hshjdhs
> 
> as always thank u for reading and i hope you enjoy!!! love u all mwuah

It’s been almost a year now, and the grief feels as raw as ever. More, even. 

Yut Lung hadn’t known much about grief before now. He’d seen people die, of course, he’d seen more than his fair share of that, but grief had seemed so terribly intangible. He couldn’t afford to pay the price of grief, it cost a little more humanity than he could afford, so he paid a piece of his soul in return for numbness. Cruelty in exchange for a smile curving his lips as he watched the darkness dissipate from his brothers’ skin, flesh from his pulsing heart in exchange for a surge of ecstasy as he watched the fear in their eyes turn blank and empty. 

He’d known nothing of grief until last January. 

It’s 2016 now, and the one year anniversary is approaching fast. Anniversaries, he thinks, are a nice concept when it’s something like, “one year anniversary of when we first started dating!” or “one year wedding anniversary!” but a really, really poorly thought through when celebrating the death of someone you loved so much you’d rather have died in their place. “Celebrating their memory” is utter bullshit, because people who really care will always remember them. How are they supposed to forget?  Anniversaries for someone’s death are like,  _ Let me slice into your heart again. Let me pull out the memories you hold and watch them get passed around and tear with every pair of hands that stretches and rips them, watch their fingerprints smear their faces and watch the salinity of their tears drip into the cracks and leech the color out of them.  _

As if grief wasn’t painful enough on its own. 

He can remember it so clearly, the night they found him. It was cold, but not cold enough to make his bones feel frozen, not cold like  _ You’d rather be on fire _ cold, but cold like  _ Did you forget that it’s wintertime?  _ cold, cold like  _ Your hands would be warmer if you held someone else’s  _ cold. He remembers wondering what Sing would say if he reached out and took his hand. 

He never really got the chance to find out. 

They were walking home from the grocery store, a bag of ice cream (Yut Lung had disapproved -  _ Why would you want to eat ice cream when it’s below freezing outside? _ ) and a few other groceries in hand, and it was dark outside, nearing 9pm. Snow was falling gently and Sing’s lawn had accumulated a decent few inches of it, like a quilt. 

Akira was out with her friends at some bar or another, and Retsu had spent the day with his best friend. 

_ He should be home by now, _ Yut Lung thought. 

They walked along lamp-lit streets chatting light-heartedly about something he can’t quite remember anymore, and as they walked closer to Sing’s house the lamplights became sparse and the road became darker.

The house was dark. That should have been the first sign. 

Retsu wasn’t home. 

There was a dark shape on the snow. It was big, bigger than any sort of animal Yut Lung had seen around here. 

He shivered. 

“What…?” Sing asked faintly as they got closer.

Limbs. Arms, legs. Blond hair. Blue skin. Boot prints in the snow.

Blood. 

Yut Lung froze. 

Sing’s breathing became heavy. “Yue… what? What is that? What?”

Yut Lung wanted to scream, but no sound came out. 

Sing breathed harder. “Retsu?” His voice shook. Rattled. Like his bones were knocking together and someone was yanking his vocal cords. 

“Retsu? Retsu?  _ Retsu?” _ Sing’s voice cracked, broken and mauled, and he dropped to his knees. He crawled towards the shape in the snow, bare hands sinking into the blood-stained snow. His hands were red and raw and Sing didn’t seem to care, not at all, and all he could say was  _ Retsu, Retsu, Retsu. _

Yut Lung noticed, vaguely, that he was shaking, and he feels like his flesh is being stripped from his body. His fingers brushed his cheeks and they came away dripping. He hadn’t even realised he started crying. 

Sing grasped Retsu’s limp arms, and when his eyes landed on his chest, he stilled. There was blood soaked in his coat, fabric and feathers torn apart to reveal dark, dark blood. So dark it almost looked like it couldn’t be blood at all, just tar poured on his chest. 

Sing traced a trembling finger against Retsu’s stained coat. When he turned his hand around and saw crimson smeared across his palm, Sing inhaled. He scooped Retsu’s body into his arms, and Retsu’s head fell limp against Sing’s shoulder. 

A wave of nausea came over Yut Lung. 

The night stilled. There was no sound, none at all. The stars dimmed and the wind stopped blowing. Neither of them dared to breathe. Like the universe was offering a moment of silence. 

And then Sing howled. 

It was the worst noise Yut Lung could have possibly imagined. Like Death himself had torn open Sing’s lungs and mangled his throat, like it had been ripped from a cesspool that had laid murky and dormant in his veins, one of all the agony, anguish, and sorrow he had ever experienced. 

If the moon had been in the sky that night it would have fallen. The sky broke apart and the stars winked out. 

Yut Lung had never heard anything so horrible. It made him want to tear his heart out and mutilate its flesh in the snow, watch its pulse die in a scarlet bloodbath. It made him want to rip his ears off so he never had to hear anything like it again, it made him want to pour acid down his throat and feel his organs decompose into mush.

It made Yut Lung scream, too. It had been trapped in his lungs, horrid and ugly, thrashing and churning and he felt all the blood in his body drain away, seep into the snow in a pool beneath his feet. 

He screamed and he screamed and he screamed, and he screamed and he screamed until he felt something gurgle in his throat. His eyes were wet and then he bent over and vomited into the snow. 

He was crying now, shaking, convulsing sobs, but his mind was less static now and he fumbled in his pocket. 

He pulled out his phone and he dialed, and he breathed in and out and in and out and he tried to settle his breathing. 

He called a number and he said words choked by leftover vomit and tears, and there was a woman on the other side and she told him to calm down, and she said, “What’s your emergency?” and all he did was cry harder, but he tried he tried he tried and he thought eventually she must have got it because before the phone fell out of his trembling hands he heard her say, “I’m sending an ambulance now. We’ll be there soon. Please try to stay calm, sir.” 

He collapsed, tears painting his cheeks and shallow breaths squeezing his lungs. He clutched his hair and he screamed, he screamed and he screamed again and now there was no more nausea, just a pounding head and a heart ripped out of his chest. He screamed until his screams were drowned out by the sound of a siren, and then everything happened too fast and the paramedics were trying to pry Retsu’s body from Sing, and Sing whimpered and made that horrible noise. But he was weak, now, and they pulled him from his grasp and Yut Lung watched them lay his body on a stretcher and load him into the ambulance. 

There was no invitation but Sing clambered into the ambulance and so did Yut Lung, and there was just noise and people rushing and machines beeping and it smelled clinical but dirty and he had stopped screaming and he had stopped crying, he just sat to the side with his hands folded in his lap and faint blood stains on his hands. 

Next to him, Sing did the same. 

Yut Lung took his hand and his body shook.  _ This is real, right? Tell me it’s a dream and I’ll wake up soon. Tell me it’s a dream. Please.  _

Sing’s hand was limp and burned hot. 

At the hospital, there was chaos. There were white walls and shouts and wheels squeaking across a polished floor, and everything was a blur for the next few minutes.

Time ticked by far too fast and far too slow. Yut Lung sat outside of the emergency room and held Sing’s hand. Yut Lung breathed in and when he breathed out his heart ached. 

_ Akira, _ he thought. He’d left his phone in the snow. 

“Sing,” he said, and his throat tore. It didn’t matter. 

Sing just breathed.

“Sing, give me your phone. I need to call Akira.” He swallowed and it felt like sandpaper.

Sing looked over at him and put his hand over his chest for a moment before letting it fall. 

Yut Lung nodded and unzipped his jacket, pulling his phone out from a pocket inside. Sing’s hands had dried by now, and Yut Lung gently took his thumb and pressed it over the home button.

His hands trembled as he called Akira. 

It rang once, twice, and suddenly he was afraid. What could he say? What were you supposed to say, in a situation like this?

There was a click, and then: “Sing?”

“It’s me.” He sounded horrible.

“Yue? What is it? Where’s Sing? Did something happen?”

“Retsu,” he said hoarsely. “Something … I don’t know. Come to the hospital. Please. Now.”

“What…? Is he hurt? Yue? Please, tell me what’s happening. Is everyone okay?”

“No,” he choked. “I don’t know how to explain. He’s not okay. Please, come quick."

There was a shaky breath from the other end of the line. 

“Okay. I’m going."

She hung up. Yut Lung turned the phone off, and the screen went dark.

-

Akira arrived twenty minutes later in blur of dark hair and red on her lips. 

Her eyes landed on Sing, with his bloody hands and frozen features, and she shook him and started to cry. 

“What happened? Sing, where’s Retsu? Where is he? Sing, please. Oh, god,  _ Retsu, _ ” she sobbed, and Yut Lung’s skin prickled. His blood swirled and he was empty. 

She fell to her knees and held Sing’s hands. Praying to someone that couldn’t possibly save her from a fate like this. “Sing, please. Tell me everything is okay. Please,” she begged, again and again and again.

Yut Lung closed his eyes. He could still see the hospital lights through his eyelids.

A door opened. Yut Lung kept his eyes closed. 

“Excuse me - my name is Doctor Colden. Do you have any relations to Retsu Sing?” He looked too solemn for Yut Lung’s comfort. 

Yut Lung felt like his skin was about to melt off. He stood and shook his hand, even though he would rather do anything else. “Yes. I’m a family friend, and this is his father and mother,” he said, indicating towards Sing and Akira. 

Akira was still on the floor, loosely clasping Sing’s hands. She stood up, smoothing her clothes, and shook his hand. 

“I’m Akira,” she said, trying to smile, but not quite managing it. 

Sing just looked up at him with glazed eyes. 

The doctor nodded stiffly. Looking at Sing and Akira, he said, “Your son was in terrible condition when you called. Two gunshots to his chest and both of them hit vital organs. By the time we arrived there was a very low chance of survival.” Akira made a choked noise and stumbled backwards. Yut Lung caught her, holding her close. She was trembling hard, but she turned to look at the doctor as he continued speaking. “We did everything we could and we had our entire trauma team working on him. We did our best to stop the bleeding and contain the injury so it wouldn’t contaminate any other parts of the body, but our efforts failed. I am sorry, but your son has died.” 

Everything exploded. 

His skull shattered and his chest collapsed on itself, and both he and Akira fell to the ground and held each other tightly, a broken harmony of anguished sobs, and he could hear Sing make that aching noise, agony and misery and despair and heartbreak and sorrow, sorrow, sorrow.

Sorrow, sorrow, sorrow, his cheeks were wet and his heart is hysterical, begging for release and begging for it all to just be a dream,  _ please, please, make everything disappear. _

Somewhere in the distance, he heard the doctor say, “Please give us a few minutes and you can visit him.”

Everything scattered, everything inside him flying out of reach, his heart at the bottom of a frozen lake and his skin stretched across a box of memories that rattles loud, loud, loud, and he couldn’t possibly survive this screaming ache in his bones, in his chest, in his mind. 

Sing moaned and Akira keened, and it tore him apart. 

Is this what grief was? Being eaten alive by a force far beyond his grasp?

There was nothing he could do to stop it, nothing at all. He just let himself fall into its jaws, be consumed and feel his flesh and bone become one. 

Grief was a horrible, aching, searing emptiness.

And he let himself be swallowed. 

-

The next few days Yut Lung remembers strangely, like an old film with crackling lines and black spots dancing across the screen, he can see it in color but just barely, and it dares him to let it slip from his memory but he knows he couldn’t possibly let that happen. 

Sing turned into something terrifying, razing. His eyes turned deadly and his heart seemed to wither into nothingness. 

They were desperate to find whoever was responsible. Together, they threw themselves into the fire. Sing made calls and his voice drew blood through the phone. Yut Lung gave orders and felt burning heat run down his chest. They were strange and machine-like, their determination to find whoever had taken him away had consumed everything. They’d gone into overdrive, their desperation to find and destroy completely erasing their grief their sorrow their pain, pain, pain, they swallowed them dry like pills and felt them scrape down their throats and they bled, bled, bled, but they would find him. They had to. 

They found them. After three days. They hadn’t slept in more than 72 hours, but they were alive and they were wild, and they were high on caffeine and bloodlust. 

It was the Vietnamese mafia, in a plot to take revenge on Sing for everything he has done to suppress their criminal activity. 

They had severely underestimated Sing and Yut Lung’s abilities to seek and destroy. 

Yut Lung didn’t use guns, or he hadn’t, but when Sing offered him a small one with gleaming metal he took it. He’d never shot a gun before, but he’d seen it enough times to know how it worked. He wasn’t aiming for accuracy, anyway, he was just aiming to kill. 

Almost too conveniently, there was a “charity event” that evening that many of the big Vietnamese mafia bosses would be attending, and Sing and Yut Lung stewed in their rage and despair while they waited for 7pm to roll around, where their plan was to go, and to slaughter everyone who could have possibly been involved.

By 6:30 they were waiting in a black car outside a disgustingly pristine venue, and the event had only just started, but their main targets hadn’t quite arrived yet. 

By 6:45 they saw them start to trickle in, and their fury burst and flowed, and it covered the chairs and burned through the fabric and burned through their flesh, but their eyes blazed hot hot hot and they couldn’t even smell the burning suede. 

At 7pm they went, and they razed. The doors were open but if they had been closed they’d be nothing but splintered wood. Glass broke and screams rang through the venue and bounced off the marble floors, and Yut Lung felt pity twinge through him for a brief moment when he remembered that perhaps not everyone here realised that this wasn’t really a charity event, but the pity was quickly swallowed by scorching rage, and his eyes still blazed and his gun was cocked and then Sing shot, and he shot shot shot and the sound rang in his ears loud and clear and addictive, and blood splattered and skulls shattered. 

There were guns being pulled on them now and but they hardly flinched when the bullets flew past them, and Yut Lung felt again that foreign but familiar thrill, when he looked down for a millisecond and saw blood on the floor and a man he recognised but only vaguely as someone he should hate, a rush of adrenaline and a spark of the same cruelty from so long ago. He looked up again and he shot and his aim was off but he didn’t care and he kept shooting.

Ahead of him, Yut Lung saw Sing shoot, and bodies went down, one by one. The thuds were sickeningly satisfying, and Sing stepped on the bodies like they weren’t even there at all, except for some, which he grinded his boot into and stared at as the blood rushed and their skulls caved in. 

It was gruesome, but the combination of wrath and bloodlust is one that was terribly potent, and when he caught a glimpse of the man lying beneath him, eyes frozen wide open, he felt something vile crawl in his throat. His eyes were dark and vulnerable, and Yut Lung thought he had to be dead, but ire poured through his bones and he raised his calf, holding it for a second as he felt a rush of ruthlessness run through him, and then he brought it down  _ hard, _ and he felt more than heard the sickening crunch of the man’s nose, and blood started to flow. 

He breathed in quick, high on this grotesque sort of ecstasy, and lifted his foot, bringing it down again on his skull. He saw the flesh turn red with the blood on the bottom of his shoe, and he stomped again, and again, until he felt his skull crush beneath his shoe. The end result was nauseating, a repulsive mess of blood, torn flesh, and bone, but euphoria soared through him. 

Pain exploded in his left shoulder and he cried out, feeling warmth soak through his clothes. Sing turned to face him and shot past him, and one more voice joined the morbid chorus of dying moans.

“You’ll be okay,” Sing said, not a reassurance, but a command. He would be okay. He had to be. 

“Yes,” Yut Lung said, and he shot again, and this time he hit. He doubted it was fatal, but he felt a surge of satisfaction. The wound in his shoulder pounded, but the pain was easy to ignore. 

The innocents had long gone. Only a few targets remained. 

Their screams pierced the air, no longer lost in the blend of chaos. The blood looked darker, and something slithered in his chest. 

Two left. His face printed itself into Yut Lung’s memory. 

One left. Sing shot his arm, and he stumbled, groaning in pain. Yut Lung raised his gun and aimed in between his eyes. He shot his heart.

He screamed. It was the loudest of all of them, it seems, but it might be the fact that he was the only one left, and the sound played again and again in Yut Lung’s mind. The thrill was gone, and when the noises finally stopped, he only felt leaden. 

His eyes felt heavy and his soul weighed heavier, like something burst inside it with the final gunshot. 

Sing turned around to face him and he saw his soul reflected back to him. His eyes were empty and his body looked like it wanted to fold in on itself. 

They walked back to the car in silence, leaving bloody footprints on the cold, cold floor.

They climbed into the backseat together and Yut Lung holds Sing. His shoulder pounded and he could feel his own blood drying. 

The air smelled like iron and he held him closer, closer. They cried together, silently, despairingly. Yut Lung took in Sing’s warmth and wonders why he still feels so cold. 

“Do you feel better now?” Yut Lung asked, head resting on Sing’s shoulder. 

“No.” Sing’s voice was hollow.

“Neither do I.” 

-

The days, weeks, months following were hollow. 

Sing was being crushed by the weight of his sorrow, and Yut Lung tried to hold it up so it wouldn’t destroy him completely. It was desperate and all-consuming, he found, and desperate to destroy anything in its path, desperate to absorb Yut Lung’s touch and Sing’s soul. 

Yut Lung found that grief did not, in fact, get easier over time. If anything, he felt more empty as time passed, and it was also a difficult thing to talk about. It was terribly difficult to ask someone how they were feeling about the murder of their only child, but Yut Lung was afraid that the longer Sing was silent, the heavier the sorrow would weigh.

It had been two months. It was one in the morning and Yut Lung found Sing outside in his front yard, sitting in the snow. He wasn’t wearing a coat.

Yut Lung sat next to him.

Sing looked at him for a moment, and then looked down at the snow again. 

“What are you doing?” Yut Lung asked, his voice soft.

Sing breathed in. “Mourning.”

“Can I join you?”

Sing breathed out. “Yes.” 

The night sparkled darkly, stars glittering softly and the moon hidden somewhere beneath clouds. The snow sat and soaked in their skin. Their hands were cold but they kept them separate. 

“Isn’t it strange?” Sing asked suddenly, breaking the careful silence.

“Isn’t what strange?” 

“It’s like nothing even happened. You look at the snow and it’s white, like it always was. It’s smooth, like it always was. The house, the walls, the door, the lights, the stars, the night - everything is the same. It’s like nothing happened at all.” Sing’s voice, which had been steady, cracked at the very end. It felt like fingernails digging into his heart. 

Yut Lung swallowed. “The funny thing about losing someone is that time doesn’t stop when you do. It just keeps going, and going, and going. Even if it feels like it couldn’t possibly go on when things are like this, it does. It doesn’t care about you, or what you’ve lost. It almost feels cruel.” 

Sing’s breathed in, and it shook. “Yeah. It goes, and it goes. And I feel like I’m getting left behind.” 

He was, wasn’t he? Time went on, but Sing could not. Trapped in time and trapped in memories, time moved and left him behind. Yut Lung wanted to yell and beg it to  _ wait, please, _ he just needs a little more  _ time, _ but it wouldn’t listen to him anyway, would it? It would just go, and go, and Sing would drown in his anguish and the waves of time. 

“I understand. Maybe I wouldn’t say I’m getting left behind. It just feels like I’m being dragged. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I cut myself away from it.” It was a dangerous thing to say, but he needed to know how Sing would respond. 

Sing looked at him. His eyes didn’t seem to be capable of burning anymore, but something flickered and sparked inside of them. 

“Yeah. Maybe I want to be left behind.” Yut Lung closed his eyes, and fear scratched desperately at his chest, but he said nothing. “Maybe I’m hoping that will be enough to see him again.”

Something horrible and ugly burst through his chest, snaking through his ribcage and winding around his aching limbs.

“It won’t,” he choked, because that was all he could think to say.

“I know,” Sing said, and he squeezed his eyes shut. His face melted into creases of sorrow and rolling tear drops. Yut Lung felt tears prick behind his own eyelids.

Yut Lung takes Sing’s hands and holds them tightly. “Please don’t let yourself do that. There is so much love for you still in this world.” His voice didn’t tremble despite the sorrow that swirled inside him. “Even his. You will always have Retsu’s love, and you will always have Akira’s, and you will always have - ” He swallowed. “ - Mine. You will always have all of our love.”

“But I won’t ever have  _ him, _ ” Sing said, and it didn’t sound protesting, or even grief-stricken - he sounded lost. 

“You won’t,” he said. “But I need you to stay.”

“I know,” Sing said, and Yut Lung’s heart leapt to his throat.

“Then please stay.”

“I will,” he said. Snow and melancholy shimmered in the night.

Yut Lung breathed a sigh of relief, but his chest ached when he did. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> would kill for a comment. would die for a kudo. either way i love you


	3. just like herringbone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [insert obligatory apologies for taking so fucking long to get another chapter out again] oh lawd he comin. final chapter babey let's get it !

Sing’s phone screen winks at him, deep within the darkness of his bedroom. 

**5:24 AM**

He’s been staying in a bedroom in Yut Lung’s apartment. He likes it better here, better than his house painted red. Sometimes the walls can feel oppressive, but he thinks that’s probably just him. 

He hasn’t slept in a while. 

He needs some fresh air, he thinks, so he hauls himself from his bed and peels off his sweat-sticky shirt. He pulls on a pair of swim trunks and climbs up the stairs to the roof.

His skin feels like it’s rotting. 

The sky is still dark, but light peeks out from the horizon. Yut Lung is already sitting there, his toes tracing ripples in the pool. 

He must have heard the door opening, but he doesn’t look back at Sing. 

Sing stands there for a while, gazing at the sky, and then after a moment he says, “Hey.”

Yut Lung turns back to look at him, and his face looks so gentle, framed in a soft, dark light. Like emotion has made his cheeks swell and his eyes melt. 

Sing swallows. “I was hoping you’d be here.” 

Yut Lung’s eyes swirl. He pauses, and then he says, “Sit with me.”

Sing nods, and walks over to the pool to sit next to him. 

The sun rises, orange yellow blue coating the horizon, and it’s lovely, lovely, lovely. 

“Dawn,” Yut Lung whispers. 

His heart stutters. He takes Yut Lung’s hand. It feels cold. 

“Have you slept?” Yut Lung asks him.

“No,” Sing replies. “Have you?”

“Only a little bit.” A pause. “I dreamt of you.”

Sing’s heart folds like paper. Sing feels Yut Lung’s fingers press creases into it, feels his fingers skate across the lilac paper, trace the edges and line up the corners. He hopes he can fold it into something less withered. “What happened?”

“We were dancing,” he says, quiet, dulcet. 

Sing waits for him to continue. Yut Lung’s fingers trace the skin of his palm instead of his paper heart. 

“We were dancing in a ballroom. It was empty, and there was glass beneath our feet and there were clouds beneath the glass. There was music playing, but I don’t remember the song.” 

Sing would like to dance with Yut Lung. Spin him around and hold him close, feel the heat of his hands through the layers of clothing.

Sing squeezes his hand. He feels like crying, but he doesn’t quite know why.

“Am I allowed to love you, yet?” The question is frail, pleading.

Yut Lung breathes in sharply. There is a silence for a moment, and it feels alive, alive, alive. It curls around them like ribbons of silk and twists around their limbs pulling tight, tight. “Are you ready to?”

Sing kisses him. He cups Yut Lung’s cheeks, holds them like delicate china. 

He won’t break this. He won’t break this. He won’t break this. 

He kisses him tender, tender. He won’t break this. The breeze wraps around them and holds them close. Yut Lung feels like sunflowers on his skin. Yut Lung feels like clouds in his head and clouds in the sky, and he feels like everything will be okay. He feels like the sun rising, the sun setting, the stars glittering, the moon shimmering.

Their lips slide and his cheeks feel wet. He wonders if they are both crying or if it’s just him.

Yut Lung’s arms wrap around his neck and they tremble. Sing holds him more gently.

This is a strange sort of heaven, he thinks, a quiet sort of joy. He loves, he loves, he loves, and he feels transcendent, the soft swirl of emotion inside of him is otherworldly. They are alone, somewhere where the sun rises forever, where the clouds are pale pink and pale blue and lined with lavender sorrow, where they love, and they love, and they love. 

They fall apart and their kiss breaks. Sing soaks in the sun’s amber light.

“Thank you for waiting for me,” he says.

“I’d wait forever for you,” Yut Lung says. 

He blinks and his cheeks are painted again. He is so, so loved.

“I love you,” Sing says, and he is choked but his words are full.

Yut Lung starts to cry, more ardently now. His sobs make Sing’s heart rattle and his skin shatter, and he cries, too.

They weep, and they clutch each other tightly. They are loved, they are loved, they are loved.

The sky turns pale blue.

-

Akira calls Sing a few days later, in early August. It’s not the first time she’s called him, but this is the first time she says, “I have something to tell you.”

“You do?” Sing asks.

“Yeah. Can we talk about it over lunch? You can bring Yue.” 

“Okay. Now?”

“Sing, it’s six in the evening. No, we’re not talking about it now over lunch. How about tomorrow at one? And I mean PM.” Her voice lilts slightly towards the end, an odd sort of mocking tone. She sounds lighter. 

He smiles, or comes close to it. “Okay.”

That night, Sing and Yut Lung eat stir-fried vegetables, and before Sing goes to bed, he presses a kiss to Yut Lung’s cheek, like a violet-petalled flower between pages of poetry. 

He smelled like lavender and his skin felt warm, and he pulls the blankets tightly around himself and closes his eyes. 

-

Sing looks around the sun-filled cafe. Akira waves at him from a booth in the corner, and her lips are a delicate shade of pink. The color suits her. 

Yut Lung’s hand brushes his. Sing moves to the booth and means to take a seat across from Akira, and ends up face to face with Michael Lobo. Yut Lung slides in next to Sing. He makes eye contact with Yut Lung for a moment, and then he says, “Michael, what - ”

Akira glances at him sharply. 

And then he understands. “Oh. Oh! Oh, oh my god. It’s so nice to see you again, Michael. It’s been a while.”

Michael’s smile is warm and bright, and he makes Sing feel more at ease. He’s handsome, for sure, dusty blond hair and hazel eyes and a charming personality. He was an old family friend, of sorts, but not one they were ever very close to, not like Yut Lung - he was more of a “come over for our 4th of July barbeque,” “dinner once a month,” type of friend.

Akira always smiled rosy and genuine when he was around, and Sing is probably more surprised than he should be. 

Akira coughs. “So you’ve probably realised that Michael and I are in a relationship.”

Yut Lung smiles, and so does Sing. “I’m happy for you guys. You’re both really wonderful - you deserve each other.”

“Thank you, Sing,” Akira reaches over to squeeze his hand. 

This is good. They’re moving on. Forward. From each other, at least, but Sing knows that there will always be love between them. 

The conversation flows easy between the four of them, and Sing wonders what it would have been like had Sing and Akira never fallen for each other from the start. What it would have been like if they had started out like this, with Sing and Yut Lung fiercely in love and Akira and Michael just as in love? They would have been happy, he thinks. 

But does he regret it? Does he regret the way that things had turned out? 

There’s a lot of room for regret in Sing’s life, but he finds it hard to. 

Retsu’s death was a crushing, soul-engulfing, horrific thing, and he sees his eyes, his dyed blonde hair, his cheeks, around every corner, carved into the faces of strangers. And he’s never been such a believer in the idea that it’s better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all, but for Retsu, he knows it’s true. 

Before Retsu, Sing had never realised he could ever love someone so much. He had loved Akira, and there hadn’t been any doubt about that, but he loved Retsu a thousand times more. Sing would never stop wishing that it had been him shot in his place. Retsu was the light of his life, and Sing would have done anything for him. 

He could never regret a love like that. He could never regret 16 years of joy, joy, joy. Because despite his terrifying, devouring sorrow, he had 16 years of light, of a love so bright he could hardly believe how much it filled him. How could he regret that? If this was the price he had to pay, then he would pay it. He would pay it, no matter how much it cost him. For joy like that, he would pay any price. 

He has Yue, now. It’s long, long overdue, but they have each other now. And Yue is patient, and kind, and his tongue is still sharp but Sing adores him for it, and they have their strange, starlit nights, their softer moments and their melancholy moments and their furious moments, and they’re all okay, they’re all just a little bit gentler because they’re together. 

Michael is good for Akira, because his smile matches hers and he makes her laugh, and when he laughs too it’s infectious, and Sing can tell that Michael can take her hand and pull her out when she stays too long in the dark. 

They leave the cafe with Sing’s hand in Yut Lung’s and Akira’s hand in Michael’s, and the summer breeze winds around them. 

They part with promises to see each other again soon, and Sing lets heartache and a tender sort of love twist into his skin. 

-

The September air is almost warm in Sing’s room, making the curtains float softly around his windows. He doesn’t know why he doesn’t just pull the curtains away, but he thinks maybe he likes the fluttering motions. It makes him feel more real. 

There are no stars in the sky tonight, just a strangely bright sort of grey, and Sing feels alone, sitting on the edge of his bed, watching the curtains dance against the filtered sky. Even his thoughts have abandoned him, stuck to his walls and sinking into the floor rather than exploding in his mind, a terrifying frenzy of emotions that stain his skin and crush his lungs. 

His room feels echoing, amplifying, his thoughts projected in high definition across every surface. He lays in his bed and watches blood, loneliness, fear, turn and slither between his eyes. 

Lately, he’s been drowning in thoughts of time. 

Fear has never been new for Sing, but a fear of time was something he had never encountered before. It was something grotesque, devouring. 

You can’t escape time, Sing found. And he thinks that is the most terrifying thing about it. Nothing, nothing you do will make it stop. Even if the world collapsed, even if it was swallowed by violet-blue flames, time would still go on. Only your own death would press stop. Not pause, stop. 

Stop.

But today he is lonely.

It’s a strange sort of loneliness. Sing can usually appreciate time alone, silence like a blanket pulled loosely around him. But this loneliness is different, this loneliness is the feeling you get in the night, when everyone is asleep, but you aren’t, you can’t, and you stare at the ceiling and you feel sort of cold, and you think this could be nice, almost, something tracing the line of peaceful but still choosing to stay oddly melancholy, for no reason other than you simply can’t bring yourself to feel anything more than that.

That’s the loneliness that Sing soaks in. And Sing thinks that maybe he doesn’t like it, so much, that his thought-splattered walls and his thought-drenched floor are starting to feeling too lifeless. 

He stands up, and then he wonders if Yut Lung is awake. 

He decides he’ll look. Quietly. 

When he peeks in through the door, he’s laying in bed, thick duvet over him, but Sing can see his eyes are open, and he turns his head towards the door when it opens.

“Sing? What is it?” His voice sounds loud in the night, but the despair painting Sing’s skin cracks and starts to peel away. 

“I wanted to be with you,” Sing says, and he didn’t even know it was true until he said it.

“Okay,” Yut Lung says, and he pulls back the covers and pats the space next to him. Sing stares at it for a moment, and then walks over and slips beneath the duvet. It’s warm and heavy and it smells like Yut Lung. Sing likes that.

He pulls it over his chest, and his arms slide beneath the covers. His fingers wander slowly, searching for something to grab onto, when finally he finds Yut Lung’s hand. They thread their fingers together, weaving thread and skin and veins and hearts.

Sing’s heart beats slow and he likes it like that. His skin burns like dying flames and it’s nice, so nice. His voice swims in his throat, lost.

“Do you believe in destiny?” Yut Lung asks. His words cool Sing’s skin.

“I don’t know,” Sing says. He’s thought about this many times. “I don’t know that I fully believe or don’t believe in destiny. But I think that if it was real, if there was a destiny, then it sure is a cruel son of a bitch.”

Yut Lung laughs, just a little. Breathy and light. Sing wants to spread it across his skin. “You’re right. But I… I don’t know. I think what I was really trying to ask if you think that we, us, this, was meant to happen. If you think that it was always going to happen. Are we destiny, Sing? Are we fate?”

_ Are we fate?  _ Sing wonders. He’s silent for a long time. 

“If there was a destiny,” Sing says, “It would be just for us. There would be a destiny just for us. For us to meet, for us to fall in love. I think that even if there were other universes, other versions of us where banana fish was just some stupid name from a fever dream, you’d still be there, and I’d still be with you. Because, Yue - I don’t know shit about fate, or destiny, or faith, but I do know about you. And I don’t think there’s a place in the universe where I don’t. That’s what I think.” Sing stares at the ceiling and squeezes Yut Lung’s hand. 

“Oh,” Yut Lung says, breathless. 

“Oh,” Sing echoes.

Yut Lung kisses him. He kisses him like the wind, how it tangles in his hair and winds through his ribcage and flutters through his clothes, achingly gentle and scorching and all Sing can feel is lips and skin and something sick in his chest, honeyed tea down his throat and tongues intertwined. He feels Yue crawl on top of him and Sing wraps his arms around him, around his neck his waist his hair like silk threads and he has never woven anything before, but he thinks that he could weave something beautiful with it now. Yut Lung’s lips are devastatingly sweet, and Sing thinks he could devour him, swallow him whole and digest all his grief digest all the love he’s pressing into Sing’s skin.

This kiss is everything, Sing pours everything everything everything into this kiss, he pours sorrow into the dips and smooths its dents with a muted sort of rage, he pushes joy into the corners of it and paints pictures across the surface, pictures of love, love, love. 

He paints them wild and careless, he paints them white grey purple like thunderstorms in their chests, and he kisses him with a dreamy sort of lust, not like desperate and uninhibited and burning, but tender, tender. This is a soft sort of wanting. He wants and he wants. The night feels full. Overflowing. 

Sing gives in to it, and he drowns in sheets and skin. 

-

On January 2 nd , 2016, Sing calls Akira. 

“Hey,” Akira says. Her voice is heavy.

“I think we should scatter his ashes,” Sing says. 

There’s a long silence on the other end. “Tomorrow?”

“Yes. I was thinking we could go to the beach.”

“Yeah,” Akira says, distantly. “Retsu likes beaches.”

“Retsu likes beaches,” Sing echoes, and his throat burns.

“Okay,” Akira whispers. “I’ll come to your house tomorrow. And then we can go to the beach together. 6 AM, okay?” Neither of them will wish they were sleeping.

“Okay,” Sing says, and there’s a click.

Sing starts to cry.

-

On August 3 rd , 2016, Sing waits in the driver’s seat of Yut Lung’s car. Yut Lung had hugged him, warm and tight, and then he had said, “Send him my love.” 

Sing had promised he would. 

At 5:57, Akira opens the passenger door. She closes the door, and once Sing hears the click of her seatbelt, he starts to drive. 

In the backseat, there is a small wooden box, intricately carved and made of mahogany. Sing can hear it slide against the suede. 

It feels like it’s sliding against his ribcage. 

Akira doesn’t turn on the radio. She just stares out of the window, watching concrete blur into trees blur into sky.

They arrive at 6:42. It’s still dark, and when they get out of the car, Akira has to zip up Sing’s coat for him. 

Akira takes the box from the backseat. She holds it like it’s a child. 

It is a child, Sing remembers. It hurts.

They walk together along the sand and the wind only blows softly, today, and the wind always blows harsh and cruel in the winter. 

Maybe the wind is offering its own moment of silence. Moment of softness. 

There’s no one here. The words, “Thank you,” are on his lips, but he can’t make any sound. 

Akira slips her hand into Sing’s. She’s wearing woollen gloves, and Sing wears nothing. His hands are cold, probably, but he’s finding he doesn’t really care all that much. 

He and Akira walk hand in hand on a dock that stretches far across the ocean. Her boots knock hollow against the wood, and Sing’s footsteps are dull thumps on the boardwalk. 

When they reach the end of the dock, Sing and Akira stare at each other. In that moment, Sing feels a strange sort of emptiness. Akira looks beautiful, he thinks. There’s a soft glow of light on the horizon, now, and her hair is slightly tangled from the wind. It’s cut short, up to her chin, and it suits her. Really well. Akira is really, really beautiful. Her lips are small and full, and her skin is sun-kissed and smooth, and her eyes are big and could hold everything, he thinks. 

Or almost everything. 

Some part of him aches, then, not for her, but for what used to be. Her eyes like the stars, Retsu like the sun. He misses the way he used to smile, then. He smiled carelessly. 

He wants to smile like that again, someday. His heart pounds in bruised lungs, but he has a feeling he will. 

He thinks of Yut Lung. He will, he will, he will. 

Akira takes off her gloves. She puts them down on the dock, and then she looks at Sing again, fingers wrapped around the box. 

“Are you ready?” she asks. Her voice trembles.

“I don’t know,” he says. His voice trembles, too. 

“I don’t know, either,” she says, and she opens the box. 

The sky is getting lighter. Sing can see the grey ashes at the bottom of the box, and something rips inside of him.  _ This is Retsu, _ he thinks.  _ This is everything he used to be. _

His smile, his heart, his eyes, everything that could never, ever leave Sing’s heart, his mind, everything is all gone. Just ashes. That’s all that’s left. 

Ashes. 

Sing breathes. Tears coat his cheeks red, and he weeps. _Retsu, Retsu, Retsu._ _I miss you. I miss you. I love you. Come back. Please, come back._

Akira sobs, too. Sing can feel her shaking, shaking, shaking, and she passes the box to Sing with trembling hands. 

“Please do it, Sing. I can’t. I can’t.” Akira’s voice is messy, watery, grief-choked and anguish-torn. 

He takes the box, and his tears almost drip into the ashes. Agony seizes him, and he hurls the ashes into the ocean. The box stays in his grip, somehow, but as soon as his arm falls it clatters on the dock. Sing hardly cares, anymore, and he collapses on the dock, arms around Akira.

They weep together, and it’s something violent and horrible and keening and aching, aching, aching, and there are broken  _ I love you _ s somewhere within the sobs, from both Sing and Akira, and neither of them are entirely sure if they’re talking to Retsu or each other. Both, maybe. 

The sky is almost blue, now. There’s something so strangely poetic in all of this, in the rising sun, in the hearts breaking again, in the tears in the ashes in the way they’re holding each other. 

Their sobs begin to quiet after a while. They peel away from each other, sticky and saline, and Sing stands at the edge of the dock again. 

“Yue loves you. I love you. I love you. I love you.” Sing whispers it again, and again, and again, like a mantra. “I hope you’re listening. I love you. You’re my everything.”

Akira stands with him. She takes his hand again, and now she has no gloves. They’re just holding on to each other. 

She whispers, too, but Sing is too focused on his own words to hear what she’s saying.

“We’ll see each other again. I love you.” Sing has never believed in heaven or hell, but in that moment, he does. Or something like it, because death is far too permanent for any sort of closure to be possible without it. Sing will see him again. Sing will hold him again. He’ll say, “I love you,” again. 

Retsu won't ever really leave him. He'll think about him every day, he'll see him every day in the pieces that are left. 

They'll see him again. They'll hold him again. They'll say, "I love you," again.

Sing holds Akira’s hand. When his words fade away, the sky is blue, and there are a few people on the beach. Sing scoops the box up as they walk back, and Akira picks her gloves off the dock. They have sand on them, and she doesn’t put them on, just puts them in her pockets. 

They probably look homeless, Sing thinks as they’re walking back. Tear-stained jackets, swollen faces, carrying an empty box and hair all tangled. They get a few not-so-furtive glances, but they’re left alone. 

The drive home feels gentler. 

-

It’s snowing. 

Snow was a bitter, cold thing, before, b ut the snow feels sweeter, this time around. Maybe it’s easier because he’s watching from the inside. 

Or maybe it’s just easier because he’s watching with Yut Lung. 

“Would you be a darling and pass me the whisk?” Yut Lung turns around, and Sing can’t help but smile. He looks - well, quite frankly, he looks pretty cute, wearing a red and white striped apron with his hair piled high on his head, there’s flour dusting his cheeks and sugar on his hands. 

“Anything for you,” Sing says, half sarcastically, but they both know he means it. 

He grabs the whisk and passes it to Yut Lung, who takes it and starts to mix the dry ingredients. 

They’re making cookies, and isn’t that wildly domestic? Sing likes it. Really, really likes it. 

“Can you melt the butter? I already put it in a bowl,” Yut Lung says. Sing puts the bowl in the microwave (the butter is sliced into smaller pieces so it’ll melt faster - who knew Lee Yut Lung knew so much about baking?) and heats it for 30 seconds before pulling it out again. 

“Do you need to wait for it to cool down? Or are you just gonna put it straight in?” Sing asks.

“I am going to,” Yut Lung starts, before bending down to the oven so he can preheat it, “just put it straight in. Did you already get the eggs?”

“Yup.” Sing passes him two eggs, and Yut Lung takes them and cracks them into a separate, smaller bowl, and whisks them together. 

Sing sits down. “I can’t believe we’re in our forties,” he says, equal parts disbelieving and despairing. 

Yut Lung puts down the whisk and turns around. “God, tell me about it. How are we this old already?”

“I think about that so often. How did time just pass us by like that? I mean, banana fish was thirty years ago, and sometimes I still dream about Golzine in that fire. I always wake up sweating.” Sing folds his hands in his lap. Banana fish wasn’t exactly a pleasant time in either of their lives, but it was the reason that they met. 

He’s grateful for that, at least. 

Yut Lung turns back around to pour the butter in the eggs. Sing feels a little bad that he isn’t helping more, but he’s enjoying watching Yut Lung whisk all their ingredients together too much to regret it. 

“Fucking banana fish,” Yut Lung says while he whisks the butter and eggs together. “That was so awful. I think my two biggest fears when I was sixteen were Ash Lynx and getting wrinkles.” The whisk clatters around the bowl. “And now I have wrinkles and no Ash Lynx. Karma’s a bitch, huh?”

“Your wrinkles are nice,” Sing says absently, and he hears Yut Lung laugh, really laugh. His laugh is addictive, Sing is discovering, and he wishes he could keep it forever. 

He sort of can, now. The thought makes him feel warm. 

“Appreciated, but they’re not even sexy. I mean, I’ve never really seen sexy wrinkles, but I guess I thought I would be the exception.” Yut Lung pours in a cup of milk and starts to whisk. “They’re literally fucking frown lines. Who the fuck gets frown lines?” 

“Maybe if you smiled more,” Sing teases. 

Yut Lung pours the wet ingredients in the dry and turns around, a smile so large and clown-like stretched across his face Sing can’t help but burst into laughter. 

Yut Lung’s smile turns a touch more real at the sound of Sing’s laugh, and he says through clenched teeth, “How’s this? Are my frown lines gone now?” 

“Yes,” Sing lies. 

“You’re lying,” Yut Lung accuses, turning back around to mix the ingredients together. 

“I definitely am. But in my opinion, they add character, so you should love your frown lines,” Sing says, very seriously. 

“They add  _ ugly _ character,” he says, and Sing laughs again. 

“They add  _ beautiful  _ character. You’re beautiful.”

Yut Lung throws a glance over his shoulder, half  _ oh stop it  _ and half  _ shut the fuck up _ . It makes Sing smile really hard. 

“No you,” he says, and Sing smiles even harder. 

“Now get up and help me roll these cookies into balls. You’ve been sitting around for too long,” Yut Lung says, and Sing stands.

They roll the cookies together, and an hour later when Yut Lung pulls them out of the oven, they’re hot and burn Sing’s tongue. 

“I told you to wait until they were cool,” Yut Lung chastises, but it’s hard to miss the affection dripping heavy in his voice. 

Sing kisses him hard, and when he pulls away, he says, “Does my tongue feel hot?”

Yut Lung laughs and kisses him again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey all! you get so many hugs from me if you made it to the end!!!! i hate to be cocky but this shit was so slept on so i truly appreciate every single one of you that stuck with me and this fic or even if you just read and enjoyed it, thank you. this fic has a really special place in my heart now and considering i was expecting it to be like a 2 or 3k oneshot this went way farther than i was expecting it to and i'm honestly super sad it's over ;(
> 
> but yea! sorry 2 get cheesy but this is probably one of my favorite things i've ever written and so! to those of you who commented, left kudos, thank you!!!!!!! you get EXTRA hugs from me!!!!! if you leave a comment now you might even get a kiss [blush emoji]
> 
> anyway come talk to me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/grey_x_green) or [tumblr](https://grey-x-green.tumblr.com/) or just give me a seggzy follow i'm here 4 u always


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